What's he on about now?

In case the articles, essays and opinions throughtout this site just weren't enough for you, here's my online diary (a.k.a. 'blog'). It's as close as you'll come to the inside of my head, so don't say I didn't warn you
(and remember, you can always e-mail me if you love or loathe anything you're about to read)...


   Saturday, September 21, 2002

A NEVER-ENDING STRUGGLE?

Too busy to blog.

It's sad but the twin jobs that are pulling me out of a financial swamp are also pushing me into quicksand. I'm working. All. The. Time. And I worry about the days I'm giving up as I do so. But I'm still pleased, as I'm watching someone I know prepare to leave Toronto and move back in with her parents, in order to save money and get out of debt. I could never do that and I'm thrilled that I haven't had to. I paid off three months of phone and cable bills today, along with a debt of $400 owed to someone else, and I then treated myself to a couple of cheap DVDs and comic books, so I wouldn't feel like a total adult!

The only comic book I still follow avidly is an X-Men spin-off formerly called Cable but recently renamed Soldier X -- a terrible title but one that deserves a look. Writer Danko Macan and artist Igor Kordey are both Croatian-born and have given the comic a gritty, real-world feel.

Its hero-from-the-future Nathan Summers fights mobsters, terrorists and spies throughout Europe and Central America -- trying to prevent the dystopian society he grew up in, 2000 years from now -- using his telekinetic powers and a sort-of future-Buddhism called Askani, which means 'outsider'.

In the current, third issue, Nathan is trying to save a mutant Russian girl from being horribly exploited, but her own father refuses to help, saying, "Maybe you can't understand this, friend Nathan. You are not Russian, you have hope. We don't. What's is...is, and that's all."

As Nathan writes to a friend, "And that, dear Irene, was what really made me angry.
'What is...is' is a credo of my faith. An Askani says those words to pardon the world before he starts changing it. To hear that holy phrase reduced to an excuse for despair...that I couldn't stand."

But later, he admits his doubts:
"And what do I do, the soldier who has outlived his war?
Does the world really need me? Does anyone?
What do I do?"

"The world needs hope, that much is certain. But it certainly does not need me.
For, what kind of message do I represent?
Inability to attain peace, with myself or the others? A never-ending struggle?
Those words do not spell hope.
Who, then, would want to believe in me --
-- when I could not.
When I would not."

And when I read those words this week, I felt happier knowing that someone understands how I'm feeling lately, that even a comic-book character like Nathan Summers can be the conduit (cable?) for the writer sharing his experience and connecting with mine. And then perhaps yours, and then perhaps all of us. I'd like to think such words could spell hope.

Labels: comic books, Trawna